Find a Creative Option

This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally a song, hymn or selection of poetry to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Vujicic, Nick. Limitless Devotions for a Ridiculously Good Life. Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2013. pp 96-99.

Opening Thought: Today’s devotional can be summarized to the simple idea of making lemonade from lemons. This is the concept of looking to better yourself or your situation within and from times of difficulty. This is a skill that must be learned in conjunction with faith. The first step in making this work is first learning to name your lemons. Society spends much time and effort focusing on positives and  more specific hedonistic pleasures, that people tend to shy away from their struggles. Being able to name your struggles is the first step to correcting, healing, restoring, and changing your situation.  

The devotional begins with: Psalm 107:4-9
Some of you wandered for years in the desert,
    looking but not finding a good place to live,
Half-starved and parched with thirst,
    staggering and stumbling, on the brink of exhaustion.
Then, in your desperate condition, you called out to God.
    He got you out in the nick of time;
He put your feet on a wonderful road
    that took you straight to a good place to live.
So thank God for his marvelous love,
    for his miracle mercy to the children he loves.
He poured great draughts of water down parched throats;
    the starved and hungry got plenty to eat.

Second Thought: When I was in college, I worked for a summer at a church camp. At the end of the day we would ask the kids what their orange was (being their favorite part of their day) and what was their lemon was (there least favorite part of the day). This was a great way to get the kids to unwind before bed, but it was also a wonderful tool to help them take ownership over how they were feeling. When you feel bad about something name it, whether it was something that was done to you, you did to someone else or just bad circumstance. If you don’t name it, those negative feelings can build up and cause issues. Biblically we even see this with procession, when demons take hold of a person, if you know their name, you can call them out. This was a belief in that time period to know a negative spirit or being’s true name would give you some control over it. Naming the hardships in your life is great, but that just the first step, you also must be willing to work through the hardship and call it out and, of course, talk to God in the process. The most healthy and happy people I often meet are the ones who do not wait for the years in the desert to pass before they talk to God, rather they spoke to God they very moment when their foot hit the sand.

Continual Work: We all need to pray more, that is what it comes down to. A great way to pray when you do not know how to start is with oranges and lemons, lift up to God your thanksgiving for your orange of the day and ask from strength and wisdom to address your lemons.

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: This process of checking in with God and self is very important for me over the winter. The short dark days can become very daunting to me, so I need to make sure that I reach out to the Lord before the struggle becomes too much.  

Scripture time: 2 Corinthians 5:18-19

 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.” (NRSV)

Being lost in the desert would be terrifying, if there could be a reality I would wish to avoid, there would not be many realities worst than this. Sometimes we feel life is a big desert, one big lemon. How do we find the peace in ourselves, facing such a landscape and begin to move forward? Turn to the ultimate! When we look to what God has done through Christ to heal our nature and gift us with reconciliation, it can transform a perspective. When you realize the ultimate goal of existence is in the hands of God, the desert you’re in may not feel as scary. This doesn’t mean it won’t be difficult, but it can certainly take the pressure off, and maybe you might take pause, get your bearings and find your way out towards the promise land.

Closing Words: I hope you enjoyed and were lifted by this devotional time; it is truly important to take time for God each day. By doing so, you welcome God into your life, and in turn you will be able to better see the world through the eyes of God, rather than God through the world's eyes.

Artistic Close: Poetry by Rev. Jacob Shaw

 

It’s gritty, the sand beneath my feet.
Where am I?

I must be lost, afraid and alone.

But; here is, I Am!
It’s okay, I hear the waves.

I am upon the beach.